Rumour at the top

The poet laureate is embroiled in a bitter dispute with one of his writing students. Each accuses the other of harassment. Novelist
Anna Davis explains how the highly charged atmosphere on such courses can lead - at the very least - to gossip

Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, has complained to the authorities at the University of East Anglia, where he runs the prestigious MA course in creative writing, that he has been harassed by a former student. The student, meanwhile, claims that it was Motion who was harassing her. Motion's wife, the writer and critic Jan Dalley, is reported as saying the student had a "crush" on her husband which turned "sour", and also that "crushy-type relationships" are bound to happen to creative writing tutors because "they talk about emotions".

I teach on Manchester University's MA course in novel writing. A few years ago, before getting my first publishing deal, I was a student on the East Anglia course, and know just how high the stakes are for writing students. Studying on a creative writing course is not like studying 20th-century history or astrophysics. It is deeply personal and highly precarious. Writing is striptease: even when not writing about your own life and experiences, you are constantly revealing yourself on the page; you are showing something about your obsessions and preoccupations; about the creative energy which drives you. Being accepted on to one of these courses is a real buzz - someone "in the know" is saying that your writing is attractive; that you are attractive.

Most creative writing courses feature "the workshop", in which students disclose their work to the tutors and the group. Workshops are terrifying - you feel that you are really laying yourself on the line. Sometimes you emerge feeling as though you have been ripped apart. Other times you might be showered with praise: "I love your work. Your writing is so passionate, so gorgeous and sensual. I just think you're so clever." It's hardly surprising that in such a highly charged environment, students get crushes on their tutors - and vice versa.

The creative writing tutor is a charismatic figure. You are a published novelist (or poet), which means you know "the secret". Your praise means so much more than that of fellow students because it comes from this position of secret knowledge. The students know that you must believe some of them to be better writers than others, and occasionally students vie to be "the one" whose work you truly rate.

For so many of them the creative writing course is about dream fulfilment - and you are the one with the power. Many tutors play favourites, giving more attention to a few talented students than to the rest - taking the chosen ones to restaurants and bars, visiting them in their homes . This can be the start of something - perhaps gossip; or perhaps something more. It is very easy to take advantage of people who look up to you; who hang on your every word.

It is not always the student who pursues the tutor. Contrary to popular belief, writers do not typically lead glamorous lives. The writer spends most of his or her time in a tiny room, trying to force words out on to a blank page or screen. It is a lonely and frequently boring existence, and sometimes you wonder if anyone is actually out there listening to you. Think how wonderful it is, then, to emerge into a room full of people who think you are something special. Some of these people might be genuinely talented - a fresh talent that hasn't yet slipped into the mire of cynicism and bitterness in which so many seasoned writers languish. And some of them might be young and nubile .

Now, I'm sure - and, in fact, hope - that any of my current and former students reading this article will have just laughed their cornflakes across the table. We're by no means all "at it". But there are far too many potentially libellous stories circulating around the "creative writing circuit" - and featuring a wide array of tutors and students from MA courses, short residential writing courses and writing workshops at literary festivals - for them all to be complete fabrication. Writing teachers are the new Rodins and Gauguins. Sex with students is like sex with the life model or apprentice in their day - just good bohemian fun. There are lots of people "at it" out there. You know who you are.

It is easier for male tutors who wish to indulge in this particular form of recreation than it is for heterosexual women - mainly because there are always so many more women studying creative writing. The class I am currently teaching has three men and 10 women, which is typical. Most of the stories you hear are about young female students and older male teachers, and this of course fits in rather neatly with all the old cliches. But women tutors are also subject to temptation.

Until very recently all this talk of sex with students and of certain colourful characters who "play the circuit" seemed remote to me. But a few months ago, I was employed to teach a one-off creative writing workshop. In my class there was a very beautiful, friendly and articulate man who was about 10 years my junior. He was really rather lovely; he looked like a Greek god and he wrote very well.

Nothing improper happened, I hasten to say - I didn't so much as go for a cup of tea with him - but for the first time in my teaching experience, I felt certain that if I had wanted something to happen with this man, it would have done. Never mind that under normal circumstances he was too beautiful to be attracted to someone like me : I had the lure of the published novelist that day, and he was giving clear signals that he was available. The incident made me feel strange. It made me understand how easily these things can happen, and I had never actually understood it before.

Of course, so many of the rumours are unfounded, and some of them are very sad. Writing classes can and should be fun. I happen to think my students are a nice bunch of people and I enjoy the odd pint with them after class - with all of the students who turn up at the pub, not just a hand-picked few.

Writing students seem to expect to get to know their tutors on a personal level, perhaps more so than on other courses, and I'm sure that some of the most useful things I have said to my students have been in the bar. Does this mean I am laying myself open to allegations? I would hate to have to be frosty and distant in order to be beyond suspicion, but is this sufficiently prudent? I know of other novelists who have taken the decision to withdraw entirely from social interaction with students after bad experiences with aspiring writers who became infatuated and evolved into semi-stalkers. These people talk about "the need to be careful". What a shame it would be if this turned us all into a bunch of stiffs.

 Cheet by Anna Davis will be published by Hodder & Stoughton on May 21, priced £10.99